Abstract
This article sheds light on the lack of cohesion in asylum approaches between EU member states and questions the dominance of the ‘integration’ paradigm. It argues that civil society organisations (CSOs) have, through solidarity, challenged the bias ‘integration’ involves and the exclusion it generates. To do this, it examines three case-based practices led by CSOs that operate in three European capital cities—Rome, Brussels and Berlin—and that embrace mobility in the context of front-line, transit and destination countries, respectively. With the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015 acting as a threshold moment, the cases navigate a complex web of relationships amidst a fragmented debate about asylum, and varying national and local frameworks in Europe. Through the comparison of cases, the article argues that the political possibilities of such practices and their enduring engagements with the urban, remain limited. However, the shift in discourse from ‘stasis’ and ‘integration’ to ‘mobility’ and ‘solidarity’ that the three cases embody, represent a critique that fundamentally challenges urban planning and its role for asylum.
Highlights
Not a new phenomenon, the most recent migratory flows seeking to reach Europe touched a peak in 2015, earning the well-known, but highly controversial term, ‘refugee crisis’
The ‘refugee crisis’ was not one created by incoming asylum seekers per se, but one provoked by the incapacity of the EU to sufficiently cater for such large amounts of displaced people at once (Doomernik & Glorius, 2016)
Because of the politics of bounding entailed by the ‘refugee crisis’ (Crawley & Skleparis, 2017), the authors will rely on the terms, ‘asylum seeker’ to refer to people in the process of seeking asylum, ‘refugee’ to indicate those that are status holders, and ‘displaced’ to describe a broader group of mobile people having experienced flight and trauma
Summary
Not a new phenomenon, the most recent migratory flows seeking to reach Europe touched a peak in 2015, earning the well-known, but highly controversial term, ‘refugee crisis’. Migration has become increasingly enmeshed with the future of many urban areas in Europe, since cities and metropolitan regions persist as main sites of arrival and passage for displaced people (Eurocities, 2016) They are, by consequence, a crucial concern for urban planning, which here is understood as “a broad set of social activities not limited to traditional planning efforts, but rather as purposeful social action to improve the quality of life in localities, cities, regions and nations” Solidarity is at the core of their actions, confirming the importance of revisiting the term in light of diversity, and by taking into account how it is practiced in everyday places by people engaging across ethnic and cultural boundaries (Oosterlynck, Loopmans, Schuermans, Vandenabeele, & Zamni, 2016) These mobilisations hold potential to engage “the city as a space distinct from, yet conditioned by, state discourses and practices” Because of the politics of bounding entailed by the ‘refugee crisis’ (Crawley & Skleparis, 2017), the authors will rely on the terms, ‘asylum seeker’ to refer to people in the process of seeking asylum, ‘refugee’ to indicate those that are status holders, and ‘displaced’ to describe a broader group of mobile people having experienced flight and trauma
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